Margaret is still handsome and aristocratic. Dr. Hoffman long ago gave up practice, his property interests increased so rapidly. Their sons and daughters are of the higher society order, intellectual, fine and noble, and a power in the land. One daughter has married an Englishman of rank, the other is the wife of a Bishop. Margaret is serene and satisfied, and still very fond of her little sister.
Dear Doctor Joe lectures mostly, and attends to hospital surgery, still keeping his tender sympathy for suffering humanity. After Grandmother Van Kortlandt went away, he brought Daisy Jasper home, to help fill the vacant spaces. And presently, when Mrs. Jasper was left alone, she came, too, the house being so large. Two mothers-in-law, according to the rules of family lore, ought to have quarrelled and sulked, but they didn't. And the babies that came were a source of delight. Though there was suffering in Daisy's life, there was so much joy that, to her, it was the unalloyed delight of living.
And Jim outgrew his fancy, and had many another one that did not strike deep enough in the soil to lead him to ask a woman to marry him. But he and Daisy were fast friends, and he saw that no one could ever have cared for her as well and wisely as dear Doctor Joe, with his wonderful tenderness.
Jim, brilliant and gay and witty, was a fine, fluent speaker, studying such eloquent models as Webster and Choate, and the vanished Clay. Did Hanny remember, when they had lost his election, and he, Jim, had turned out with the Democratic boys? There are grave questions now, on wider than party lines, and sometimes the hearts of thoughtful statesmen beat with an undefined fear.
The fun-loving, dancing side of his nature often asserts itself. Women adore him. Though he is not rich, the mothers smile on him for the "promise yet to be." Even Lily Williamson tries her arts; admiration is what she lives for now. She is one of the handsome, fascinating society vampires, who make great capital out of matrimonial infelicities, to appeal to the sympathies of really good and generous men, who are the more easily caught in the silken nets. One day she leaves her worthless drunken husband, when his money is all spent, and elopes with a young fellow of excellent family who has just come into a fortune, and later becomes one of the adventuresses that disgrace Americans in the eyes of European propriety.
Ben and Delia go abroad,—Ben in the interest of his paper, which is next to his wife; Delia to write travel letters for a weekly, and find material for her novel. It is quite a picnic, and they enjoy the economies.
Then the clouds that have been gathering a long, long while, break over the country, and all is tumult from end to end. The Seventh Regiment "boys" go down to Washington, with brave, laughing, high-hearted Jim, who understands that it is no child's play, but a bitter struggle that will call forth the best energies of the country, and who enlists for "three years or the whole war." Ben hurries home, and takes his place in the ranks. When things are at their lowest ebb, and men's hearts are sinking with fear, quiet, grave John buckles on a soldier's haversack and marches away. The others have substitutes.
Ah, what times they were! It is well that flowers can spring up on a battlefield. The little girl keeps track of her heroes. Kearny, who has seen Magenta and Solferino, meets his fate at Chantilly. Many another one who has come up to fame, many new ones, who are on the march to win or die.
John is wounded, patched up in a hospital, and honorably discharged, lamed for life. But he has done good work. Ben has a slight mishap, and Delia sends her two babies and their nurse to her sister's, and goes to the hospital, and remains. Women of brains and kindly impulses are much needed.
And one night some wounded are brought in. There has been a fateful reconnoisance, but it has saved the regiment from destruction on the next day. This limp figure in a captain's uniform is laid tenderly on a cot; but the surgeon, after a brief examination, shakes his head. Oh, surely, she knows that handsome face with the clustering dark curls!